Still
by Missy Jade
Summary: Hudson ' Hudson first takes note of it completely by accident.... ' Standalone


_Title: Still  
Pairing/characters: Hudson  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Gargoyles, all related characters and concepts are not mine, they instead belong to brilliant Greg Weisman and his awesomely awesome brain and Disney (we want that volume, Disney, just give us what we want). I make no money for this, and it's just a way for me to squee about an awesome show slaughtered far before it's time.  
Prompt: 341. Gargoyles: The Manhattan Clan. Observing the New York GLBT community from the rooftops, the clan fail to understand how humans can hate other humans so much for doing something so perfectly ordinary.  
Spoilers: Just the basics of the series (Scotland, the curse, the Clan, Elisa, etc.)  
Warnings: Only that an old gargoyle's rambling thoughts are sometimes… rambling.  
Notes: Written for **lgbtfest** on LJ. First actual post of anything I've ever written in this fandom - intimidating, yo._

Teaser: Hudson first takes note of it completely by accident. 

* * *

Hudson first takes note of it completely by accident, as he's stretched out in his chair, flipping through channels in an effort to find something to watch more than a month after they wake up. He doesn't like the news, is less than impressed by how humans _haven't_ developed in the last thousand years, but he stops on one channel the way he does every night after the first patrol.

Have to keep up with the news to protect their home, he's quickly found.

Most of their trouble doesn't reach them though the news, but still.

Still.

Always best to be prepared, that's what he's learned over the years.

So he watches as always, perking up when he notices that it's the woman he likes, dark-haired and bright-eyed, a voice that reminds of his mate when she'd been alive so long before. Time's done its magic, worn down the grief and left a vague delight whenever he remembers her, and so he likes watching this woman, this Kathy Martinez who laughs like she means it.

"… currently being held on bail," she finishes, flipping through papers and smiling encouragingly right at Hudson. "In other news," she continues, smile becoming overly bright, "hundreds turned out for a gay pride rally today, to support the recent discrimination case..." Her face vanishes, replaced by cutting images of brightly dressed humans standing together. Little old women walking together hand in hand and a woman—

No, that's a man, he decides— and then isn't sure again.

But he moves past it with a mental shake, startled into silence by the next image, flashing for just a heartbeat before the woman's face pops up again, smile broad and eyes bright.

It takes a few minutes for Hudson to process what he's just seen.

Then he's simply confused.

It had been enough of a shock when he had first accidentally clicked on what Elisa called a 'prime time soap,' found himself watching a man and woman lounging together languidly as his claws had fumbled uselessly at the remote. Elisa had rushed forward to save him but it had been overwhelming, the realization that humans had _changed_ among their own kind.

He remembers how they had always curled their lips at his kind, how… ashamed they'd always been at such natural things. It had taken him a lifetime to realize that it was just how the humans were, that they had been taught to keep how they made younglings hidden away because it was "proper."

Whatever that meant.

It had been odd but he'd accepted that it was just how humans were and told his clan to not worry about such things.

And now he had woken up to find such things played in the middle of the night.

Not only males and female, either.

Hudson clicks the television off and leans back, understandably rattled, trying to fit it together in his mind, the shift that's somehow happened while he's been asleep.

Two human men embracing in daylight, in the middle of a crowd, and he's never seen that before, not... not like _this_.

Another thing he'd slowly learned when he'd been young, that humans were fretful about such things, that the humans had always seemed more bothered by males together than they were about just the mating.

It makes no sense to him but then, nothing about human mating has ever made complete sense to him.

Just look at how they raised their little ones, just a few to care for them and what about the babe, if he lost those few?

Why, he'd have no one, no clan to turn to— he'd be helpless.

He remembers how the world had been when he'd been young himself, running around needing to be cared for, a little helpless thing that had depended on the clan. They'd all found their favorites, of course, the few older members they always rushed to when something happened and they were frightened, but they never had _no one_ to go to.

One gargoyle was as much a parent as another, would always protect the little ones as fiercely as any other.

Mating and breeding were all natural things but he'd gotten _used_ to the humans being odd.

And now the humans had turned around on him again, changed their viewpoints.

Maybe they were finally learning.

* * *

He's admittedly curious but there are other things to worry about.

So it's another week or so before Hudson learns more about how the humans have changed.

Or haven't.

It's just past dusk when he heads out that night, cool edge to the air as he stays at Lexington's side, one eye on the green shadow and one eye on the ground below him, ready to dip down if anything should happen. But things are calm, not quiet but calm, and they separate after a while, Lexington heading west.

He's deep in thought, missing the castle, when he first spots them.

He banks, slowing as he twists, catching onto a ledge and peering down curiously.

Pretty, laughing together as they move out of the building with a crowd and he realizes it's one of the movie theaters that Lexington's always talking about now. Arms entwined, heads together, and he settles there comfortably as they stop, standing together in the light as they nod and laugh and talk about whatever it is they just saw.

It takes another few moments before he realizes that the other humans are acting oddly.

Not all of them, he's pleased to see, but a few people who glance at the two women out of the corner of their eyes.

One stands there and stares at the two women as if they've just set his children on fire.

Hudson takes it all in carefully, rolls the information through his mind, how things have changed but haven't.

Thinks of the boy in the barn so many years before who had conversations with him as they'd both gotten older, chuckled as they remembered old things that nobody around them remembered. He'd liked men, Hudson had only realized after years of their late-night talks, and he'd never thought about it again.

It had never mattered.

He'd found the body when they'd returned to the castle that night, found the man he remembered as a boy who'd tried to protect stone statues, taken a moment and pulled a cloth over the body as emotion had swelled inside him.

An old man then, aging more badly than Hudson had been, a withered shape that had been cut down and open because he'd refused to step out of the way.

Another loss he refused to forget, a lifeless body carried in his heart with shattered stone.

He watches the women and thinks of the lifetime he's already spent protecting the humans, defending them from their enemies, from each other.

Not just his home he'd been protecting in Scotland, but them.

When they move to call a cab, stand together and then climb in together, he sweeps after, easily able to keep up as the shape moves slowly far below him. Turns as they do and then settles on another ledge as the bright yellow shape stops, as they step out together, looking calm as they walk past a man who holds the door open for them into a brightly lit building.

Nothing happens, as they vanish and go into their home together, nothing suspicious but still.

Still.

-

_5/27/08_


End file.
